Media Matters: Following the publication of the April 20 New York Times front-page article on the hidden ties between media military analysts and t
May 7, 2008

Media Matters:

Following the publication of the April 20 New York Times front-page article on the hidden ties between media military analysts and the Pentagon, the Department of Defense has released to the public numerous documents regarding the analyst program. One of the documents released is an audio recording of an April 18, 2006, meeting that several military analysts attended with then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. During the meeting, one of the attendees tells Rumsfeld, "[W]e get beat up on television sometimes when we go on and we are debating" and says that he would "personally love" for Rumsfeld "to take the offensive, to just go out there and just crush these people so that when we go on, we're -- forgive me -- we're parroting, but it's what has to be said. It's what we believe in, or we would not be saying it." The individual adds: "And we'd love to be following our leader, as indeed you are. You are the leader. You are our guy." The transcript released by the Pentagon does not identify the person who made this comment; the Pentagon has provided this list of "confirmed" "[p]articipants." Media Matters for America has documented the consistent unwillingness of most of the outlets mentioned in the Times article to discuss the military analyst story.

Will media outlets try to determine if they have hosted the person who asserted that Rumsfeld was "our guy" and suggested that he would "parrot[]" Rumsfeld's statements?

Media Matters provides a list of all those attending the meeting that day. The Times article quotes one ABC analyst, Gen. William Nash, as being "repulsed" by the meeting and most of its attendees, but clearly there are others only too happy to play this psyops game on the American people.

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